1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and a system for managing a tour product purchase and more specifically, for permitting buyers to select a final option that includes customized components and multi-site reservations and vendors to directly manage tour product inventory online and in real-time.
2. Background of the Prior Art
In a prior art tour product purchasing process, tour products are purchased directly from a travel agency or a tour wholesaler without automation. A buyer inquires about a desired destination and provides information for desired components, including travel dates, preferred airline, flight times, hotel, and car company. The travel agency or the tour wholesaler then attempts to manually assemble the varying components based on price to produce a complete package. The travel agency or tour wholesaler must then manually determine if the inventory of individual components is available for sale for the selected date after the parameters have been chosen. However, the prior art process must be repeated manually by the travel agency or tour wholesaler each time a buyer alters a value of a parameter of any component to compare pricing (i.e., different room category, different car type, different travel date, etc.) until a final tour product is assembled and purchased. Thus, a significant time and cost disadvantage exists in the prior art method for selecting a tour package.
Additionally, prior art web servers on the Internet permit travel vendors to advertise and sell their products online. The prior art allows online buyers to purchase tour packages that include air, car, hotel and occasionally tour activities at a single price. This allows travel vendors to offer discounts in one area of the “package” while keeping the price of the individual components “hidden,” and thus not competing directly with established distribution channels. However, this prior art system has various problems and disadvantages. For example, but not by way of limitation, in the prior art system, there are limited options regarding air, car, hotel and activities and the buyer must purchase the entire package without any customization.
This prior art system also has various problems and disadvantages. For example, but not by way of limitation, while this prior art exists in a limited form, choices are typically limited to air, car or hotel—but do not include customization capability for all three components of a typical “package” tour. In addition, buyers are not able to purchase one component of the tour separate from the others. Thus, customer choice is limited and customization capabilities for package tours are not provided.
Currently, none of the prior art systems allow for customization of package tours for multi-site destinations. In the prior art, if the consumer wishes to travel to multiple destinations in one trip, these destinations must be booked separately, which does not allow for the discounts provided in a “packaged” tour price. Prior art exists for multi-site air reservations, but these are published fare databases and do not offer discount fares or airfares in conjunction with other travel components typical of a package deal. The prior art airline component reservation systems are based on the 4 major central reservation systems (CRS) (i.e., SABRE, APOLLO/GALILEO, AMADEUS, WORLDSPAN). Although data stored on the CRS's is valuable, it comes at a steep price, a fee is charged to the vendor per ticket sold or reservation made. Additional prior art includes independent systems which bypass the CRS and allow for direct booking of participating vendors via the Internet. These CRS bypass systems are available both to travel agents via Web links, and online directly to consumers. The majority of these systems manage regular “published” fares, although some incorporate a limited inventory of “package” tours and wholesale inventory. Those systems which do bypass the CRS and allow for direct booking at a reduced fee do not currently allow for multi-site destination booking.
To manage inventory of components with a prior art travel wholesaler or reseller, the prior art vendor sends daily or weekly facsimile messages (i.e., S and R) reports showing dates which may be closed out for sale and are thus unavailable, or may open up inventory on dates which may have been previously closed out. This tedious and labor intensive prior art procedure can result in errors due to the nature of human involvement and inherent delays in updating information. Additional prior art includes limited capability of managing wholesale inventory via an Internet connection. Currently, these prior art systems are subscriber based and limited in scope and capability. For example, real-time inventory management, which includes real-time interaction with the vendor database, is currently only available in hotel booking systems.
Thus, the prior art tour product purchase systems have various problems and disadvantages. For example, because wholesale and tour inventory is offered as an inclusive “package”, customer choice is limited. In addition, there is no online capability for booking a customized or mix-and-match “package” tour which includes multiple destinations. The prior art air reservation CRS requires significant fees payments to the “middleman” which increases costs to consumers. CRS bypass systems are limited in scope and capability and do not allow for real-time inventory management of wholesale and tour inventory.